Prelate Emeritus of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Sunday Coffie Mbang, is dead. He was 86 years old.

NewsOrient Network reports that Babatunde Taiwo, the Secretary of the Church Council, confirmed the death of the revered cleric in a letter to Arch Bishops and other heads of the church.

The referred letter described Mbang as a “man who embodied the pioneering and path-finding spirit of Nigerian Methodism as he scored many firsts”.

The letter said Mbang “will surely and sorely be missed by his beloved Church, Methodist Church, to which he gave spiritual, intellectual and servant leadership for more than two decades, and the entire Body of Christ in Nigeria and the diasporas,” the statement reads.

Mbang was born in Idua Eket, Eket Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State on August 26, 1936.

He studied at the Effoi Group School, Salvation Army School, Akai-Ubium, Government School, Eket, Methodist Boys’ High School, Oron, Teacher’s College, Uzuakoli, Trinity Theological College, Umuahia, University of Ibadan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and Harvard University, USA.

He became a Minister of God in 1961 and rose through the ranks to become the Nigerian and global leader of the Methodist Church.

He also served as the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

Elected Bishop of Tinubu, Lagos State in 1979, Mbang was in 1984 elevated to the rare position of Patriarch/Prelate, a privileged position he held for 22 years.

Mbang was also the Chairperson of the World Methodist Council.